This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Calibrations are merely a shorthand means of denoting a level of consciousness that specifies both context and content. Each level has its own view of what is real and meaningful. This results in differences in motivation, value, lifestyle, or spiritual positionalities." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins
"Religion is a means, not an end. It becomes idolatrous when regarded as an end in itself." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Zen meditation does not mean sitting and thinking. On the contrary, it means acting with as little thought as possible. The fencing master trained his pupil to guard against every attack with the same immediate, instinctive rapidity with which our eyelid closes over our eye when something threatens it. His work is aimed at breaking down the wall between thought and act, at completely fusing body and senses and mind so that they might all work together rapidly and effortlessly." - Gilbert Arthur Highet
"It is desirable for a ruler that no man should suffer from cold and hunger under his rule. Man cannot maintain his standard of morals when he has no ordinary means of living." - Kenkō Hōshi, Buddhist name of Urabe Kaneyoshi
"The strong, manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one’s inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, love, fear, grief, and hate; and if a man does not give way to these, he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience." - Tokugawa Ieyasu
"Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way." - William James
"Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up, a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallible right." - William James
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson
"You should know that the chief characteristic of the soul is awareness, and that it existence can be proved by all valid means of proof. Souls may be classified as transmigrant and liberated, or as embodied in immobile and mobile beings." - Jinabhadra NULL
"Love means that the attributes of the lover are changed into those of the Beloved." - Junayd of Bagdad, aka Saint Junayd of Baghdad NULL
"Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
"To be in love with someone… is to be appropriate as a part of one’s own self – which means that one’s self-regard is doubled." - Yoshiyuki Junnosake
"Anarchism is [not] synonymous with chaos. Translated from the Greek, anarchism means the absence of rulers, or orders – not of rules or order. Order emanates naturally from the free cooperation of persons in a community." - Michael Kane
"I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Nonviolence means that we will match your capacity to inflict pain with our capacity to endure it… We have the choice in this world today between nonviolence and nonexistence." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"To love means to decide independently to live with an equal partner, and to subordinate oneself to the formulation of a new subject, a “we.”" - Fritz Künkel
"Going back to the origin is called peace; it means reversion to destiny. Reversion to destiny is called eternity. He who knows eternity is called enlightened." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"The true master understands that enlightenment is not the end but the means. Realizing that virtue is her goal, she accepts the long and often arduous cultivation that is necessary to attain it. She doesn’t scheme to become a leader, but quietly shoulders whatever responsibilities fall to her. Unattached to her accomplishments, taking credit for nothing at all, she guides the whole world by guiding the individuals who come to her. she share her divine energy with her students, encouraging them, creating trials to strengthen them, scolding them to awaken them, directing the streams of their lives toward the infinite ocean of the Tao." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"To be constantly without desire is the way to have a vision of the mystery of heaven and earth, for constantly to have desire is the means by which their limitations are seen." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"If God has taken away all means of seeking remedy, there is nothing left but patience." - John Locke
"Religion is proposed not as a transcendent revelation of the nature of man and the world, but as a means of weathering the storms of life, or of deepening one’s spiritual existence, or of preserving the social order, or of warding off anxiety." - Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman
"A hero… is not a hero until he is recognized as one. This means that the actualization of the hero is a two-way projection. First the hero must project by way of his deeds, his style, his character. When the projection registers, an imaginative process begins to remake the hero to fit as fully as possible the symbolic weight of his image. Legend and myth take over the historical personage, and through either an oral or a written tradition he is reborn in his heroic apotheosis." - Harold Lubin
"A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"Government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able nor disposed to injure you; and this is done by depriving them of all means of injuring you, or by bestowing such benefits upon them that it would not be reasonable for them to desire any change of fortune." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"In the actions of men… the end justifies the means." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
"This middle path… is the noble path, namely: right views, right intent, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right endeavor, right mindfulness, right meditation… Which leads to insights, leads to wisdom, which conduces to calm, to knowledge, to perfect enlightenment, to Nirvana." - Mahavagga of the Vinaya Texts NULL
"Prayer is the best means to uplift our consciousness from the imprisonment of personal gratification to the oneness and union with all beings. Prayer consecrates all our actions, removes ignorance, and leads us to an expanded vision of who we really are and feel the richness of life." - Bibhuti Mazumder
"In all ages, literature aims at the interpretation of the universe and a deep perception of humanity by means of language." - Yukio Mishima
"It is easy to substitute our will for that of a child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when we have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality." - Maria Montessori
"Universal love… means that one makes no distinction between the state of others and one’s own; none between the houses of other and one’s own; none between the other person and oneself." - Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL
"We live in this world to compel ourselves industriously to enlighten one another by means of reasoning and to apply ourselves always to carrying forward the sciences and the arts." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
"Poverty is not merely the lack of adequate financial resources. It entails a more profound kind of deprivation, a denial of full participation in the economic, social, and political life of society and an inability to influence decisions that affect one’s life. It means being powerless in a way that assaults not only one’s pocketbook but also one’s fundamental human dignity. Therefore, we should seek solutions that enable the poor to help themselves through such means as employment. Paternalistic programs which do too much for and too little with the poor are to be avoided." - National Conference of Catholic Bishops NULL
"Morality is primarily a means of preserving the community and saving it from destruction. Next it is a means of maintaining the community on a certain plane and in a certain degree of benevolence." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated." -
"Morality is a means for the satisfaction of human wants. In other words, morality must justify itself at the bar of life, not life at the bar of morality." - Max Otto, fully Max Carl Otto
"The nature of the numinous can only be suggested by means of the special way in which it is reflected in the mind in terms of feeling… We are dealing with something for which there is only one appropriate expression, mysterium tremendum." - Rudolf Otto
"The animosity which Nations reciprocally entertain is nothing more than what the policy of their Governments excites to keep up the spirit of the system. Each Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of Man, but through the medium of a false system of Government." - Thomas Paine
"It’s a good thing when a man is different from your image of him. It shows he isn’t a type. If her were, it would be the end of him as a man. But if you can’t place him in a category, it means that at least a part of him is what a human being ought to be. He has risen above himself, he has a grain of immortality." - Boris Pasternak, fully Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
"The theory of war as an apt and proportionate means of solving international conflicts is now out of date." - Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL
"Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not ill your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone will you be on the right road to the Gate." -
"Religion indeed wishes to be useful and beautiful, but it also means to be true." - James Bisset Pratt
"The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly